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From: gadfly@ihuxn.UUCP (Gadfly)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.misc
Subject: Re: Re: Re: SDI again
Message-ID: <1514@ihuxn.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 16-Sep-86 14:24:21 EDT
Article-I.D.: ihuxn.1514
Posted: Tue Sep 16 14:24:21 1986
Date-Received: Fri, 19-Sep-86 07:24:56 EDT
References: <973@drutx.UUCP> <480@aurora.UUCP> <603@nike.UUCP>
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories
Lines: 30

--
> Al, I believe we could spend an awful lot more if we were willing
> to give up some of the spending going to less important parts of
> the economy, and do it with relative ease.  We used to spend 50%
> of the budget on defense routinely...
> 
> The real point is a little different.  Defense spending is different
> from other types of government spending.  W.F. Buckley once said
> that you spend whatever is needed on defense, not what you could
> afford, since if you were skimpy in this area, all your other funded
> programs would be rendered useless in the case of a major war...
> 
> 					Milo Medin

It's hard to come down on a guy who's both a harpsichordist and a
sailor (and good at them), but perhaps he should stick to those
things.  Our political and economic health are intimately inter-
twined, so WFB has it exactly backwards.  Funding armaments to
the exclusion of all else for long enough will so cripple our
democracy (social and economic) as to render said major war irrelevant.
There is a good case for that defense spending which will clearly
help stabilize our very tenuous international situation, but SDI
R&D is as destabilizing as it is unworkable.  
-- 
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